Mercy Williams

Full Name: Mercy Aine Williams (Chinese name: 嘉美 Pinyin: Jia-Mei)
Age: 11
Date of birth: 27, February, 2011
Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
Current home: Cork, Ireland
Blood Status: Halfblood
Sexual Alignment: Pansexual
Wand type: 12 ½ inches, ebony, phoenix feather


Hair colour and style: Short, dark brown (almost black). Long hair gets in the way, so she likes to have a pixie cut.
Eye colour: Dark brown (almost black).
Height: 4'11" (will be 5'6")
Body type: Small but sturdy. Naturally athletic.
Dress sense: Anything that’s comfortable and doesn’t get in the way.
Birthmarks: None.
Tattoos: None.
Scars: Werewolf bite on her right shoulder.
Piercings: Ears.



Likes: (3 minimum)
  -Sports/physical activity (She’s not really into “fitness” per se, but she grew up playing football/soccer, and she has a lot of energy, so she likes to run around.)
  -Sweets (especially chocolate, and all sorts of baked goods like cake. Chocolate cake.)
  -Challenges (she’ll take on most dares, and loves to test herself--and to show off.)
  -Puppies/kittens/babies/cute things (she has a soft spot for all things cute and fluffy.)
  -Exploring (potentially dangerous adventures, yippee!)
  -Mornings/sunshine (if the sun is up, the moon is down.)
  -Surprising people (and wiping their smug grins off their faces.)

Dislikes: (3 minimum)
  -The full moon (for obvious reasons.)
  -Losing (to anyone, at anything.)
  -Waiting (or just sitting still for long periods of time.)
  -People who are patronising or who underestimate her (she’ll prove them wrong.)
  -Cowards, cheaters, and liars (anyone who fights should fight fair.)
  -Bullies (she will literally fight anyone who picks on someone weaker than them.)
  -Appearing weak/vulnerable (she hates being looked down upon, and hates feeling powerless.)

Strengths: (3 minimum)
  -Street smarts (she has good instincts, and follows her gut.)
  -Fast and agile (she may not be particularly big or strong, but she can hit hard--imagine a tennis ball colliding with your face at 90mph. It hurts.)
  -Good at picking up signals (she can intuitively tell how people are feeling.)
  -Good with animals and children (she loves animals, and she has enough energy to keep up with young kids, so she gets along well with them.)
  -Good reflexes (her knee-jerk reactions are usually helpful rather than harmful, and she bounces back quickly.)
  -Hexes and jinxes (she picks them up quickly, and isn’t afraid to use them.)

Weaknesses: (3 minimum)
  -Schoolwork (she finds homework and studying boring, and she only likes hands-on learning.)
  -Not as physically strong as she likes to imagine she is (so she’s often limited by her physical capabilities.)
  -Too trusting (she’s idealistic, and likes to believe that people are inherently good, which sometimes leads to lapses in judgement.)
  -Cares way too much (she forms emotional attachments quickly, and feels them deeply.)
  -Lycanthropy (once a month, she spends the night howling at the moon and craving raw meat. She hates going through this, and she’s scared of herself, so she’s emotionally sensitive around this time. She’s deeply afraid of hurting people, and she also hates keeping secrets, but she knows she has to, and it makes her extremely frustrated.)

Positive traits: (3 minimum)
  -Fearless (nothing daunts her.)
  -Determined (she throws herself into everything she does, and won’t give up until she wins.)
  -Tireless (she has a neverending supply of energy.)
  -Optimistic (she always tries to be positive and stay cheerful, no matter what.)
  -Confident (anything is possible if you try hard enough.)
  -Honorable (she has an unyielding moral code, and sticks to her principles.)
  -Independent (she doesn’t like asking for help, so she’s good at figuring out how to do things herself.)

Negative traits: (3 minimum)
  -Doesn’t know when to give up (she’ll keep going until she burns herself out.)
  -Cocky (she overestimates her abilities sometimes.)
  -Impulsive (she doesn’t usually think before jumping into things.)
  -Gullible (she trusts too easily, which is why she hates liars.)
  -Stubborn (she hates admitting weakness/error, so she’ll keep fighting even if she knows she has lost.)



Mercy Williams was born in Dublin to an Irish muggle father and a Chinese witch mother. She lived the first six years of her life as a relatively normal, spunky, feisty, rambunctious girl, with a penchant for bursts of accidental magic. Her father was never entirely comfortable with the whole magic thing, but he knew she couldn’t help it, and he loved his wife and daughter unconditionally. Mercy whiled away her days playing with the boys next door--wrestling, playing football, exploring, and enjoying a carefree, rough-and-tumble childhood.

On the 7th of August, 2017, everything changed. Six-and-a-half-year-old Mercy had wandered some distance away from her parents during a family outing to the countryside. She was busy exploring a nearby creek, pretending to be a grand adventurer on a dangerous quest, when she found herself in real danger. It was late evening--she hadn’t noticed how dark it had gotten, but her parents were just about to go searching for her--and a full moon was peeking out from behind the hills. Unbeknownst to the Williams family, those hills were home to a small pack of Irish werewolves.

Mr. and Mrs. Williams heard a shriek and came running. They found their daughter sobbing and screaming, bleeding profusely from a wound in her shoulder. Ten meters away, a werewolf was stirring, having been briefly knocked unconscious by a blast of accidental magic. Mrs. Williams wasted no time in chasing the werewolf off, hurling hex after hex in a devastated rage. Mercy was rushed to a hospital, but the damage was done.

When they returned to Dublin, they attempted to maintain some sort of normalcy. They kept Mercy’s condition a secret, and Mrs. Williams tried to discreetly obtain Wolfsbane potion from out of town every month. However, it didn’t take long for people to start to talk. They lived within a small magical community on the edge of the city, and after three or four months of, “Oh, Mercy can’t play right now, she’s ill,” around the time of the full moon, the neighbors began to suspect something. The rumors spread, and the Williamses gradually found themselves being shunned by their former friends. After all, lycanthropy was taboo, even if it was contained. After a particularly nasty run in with a woman she used to have tea with, Mrs. Williams finally decided it was in all of their best interests to move far away. At seven years old, Mercy and her family packed their bags and moved to Cork.

Even in their new environment, the family thought it best to lie low. They found a secluded little cottage just outside of town, and didn’t get too involved in social affairs. Mercy, being the unquenchable girl she was, maintained a positive attitude through it all, though she often suffered emotional outbreaks near the time of the full moon. She found new friends amongst the kids in town, though she didn’t get to play as often as she used to, and the Williams family managed to make things work until she received her Hogwarts letter.

After some concerned meetings with the headmaster, Mercy’s parents were finally assured that it wouldn’t be a problem--Hogwarts had hosted werewolves before. She would receive special attention around the time of the full moon, and proper precautions would be taken. The potions master would supply her with Wolfsbane, the school nurse would cover for her, and she would be taken to a safe place to transform when the time came. Anyone who asked would be told she had a medical condition--an autoimmune disorder that meant she’d be frequently ill. Satisfied with this plan, her parents allowed her to attend, though not without some trepidation.


Mother:
   Name: Ai-En Williams (nee Hsu) (most people call her Ai)
   Age: 33
   Living or Deceased: Living
   Blood type or Species: Halfblood
   Occupation: Apothecarian

Father:
   Name: Domhnall Williams
   Age: 40
   Living or Deceased: Living
   Blood type or Species: Muggle
   Occupation: Landscaper



Ai-En Hsu is the only daughter of Meili and Chen Hsu, Chinese immigrants who moved to the UK after the first defeat of Voldemort, hoping that post-war magical Britain would be in need of workers, and thus hold opportunities for immigrants. They settled in England, and raised their daughter there, sending her to Hogwarts where she was sorted into Hufflepuff. Ai quickly discovered an interest in magical herbs and remedies, spending much of her time in the greenhouse studying plants. When she graduated, she moved to a magical community in Dublin and started an apothecary.

There she met a local man named Domhnall, who swept her off her feet. He fell in love with her at first sight, and took every opportunity to see her, in the hopes of wooing her eventually. She resisted at first, but he wore her down, and two years later, they were married. After being happily married for two more years, they decided to expand their family, and Mercy was born.

Almost immediately, she began showing signs of magic. Ai hadn’t told Domhnall she was a witch--when they married, they’d moved into a small house together in the middle of the city, away from the magical community where Ai had previously lived, so Ai had been able to hide everything with relative ease. She was afraid that he’d have a negative reaction, so she’d decided not to tell him unless she absolutely had to. When their five-month-old baby started to hover instead of crawl, she realized she no longer had a choice.

Domhnall handled the news surprisingly well. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but he loved his wife, and he loved their daughter, so it did nothing to hinder their relationship. They moved back to the magical part of town so they wouldn’t have to keep secrets from their neighbors.

When Mercy became a werewolf, it was much harder on Domhnall. He still loved her unconditionally, and he’d never dream of leaving or hurting her, but he felt so powerless and frustrated as a muggle in a magical world. Often, in the first few months, he’d go off by himself and kick a few things, or have an emotional breakdown. He hated seeing his daughter in pain, he hated not being able to do anything about it, and he hated how a decade earlier, he’d thought all of the things he was dealing with now were just fairytales. Eventually, he was able to pull himself together, but he still hates the full moon almost as much as Mercy does.

It was the 10th of September, 2022. A full moon. Mercy’s first full moon at Hogwarts, away from her parents. It was 8:00 pm, and she was waiting nervously just inside the hospital wing, perched on a wooden chair. A small bag holding a change of clothes sat at her feet. She had eaten dinner with the rest of the students--or she had tried to anyway. She had found her appetite rather lacking.

She’d been increasingly sensitive over the past couple days, easily irritated over the smallest of things. Just yesterday, she had smashed an inkpot in frustration after she had messed up her potions homework for the third time, her growing agitation rendering her unable to concentrate. She hoped no one had noticed how uncharacteristically pale and jumpy she was. So far, no one had said anything, but she had gotten some strange looks from her housemates. She would probably need to develop a better rein on her emotions. This would happen every month, people would start to get suspicious eventually.

At 8:05, a nurse came to fetch her. The hospital wing was empty except for her, they’d made sure of it. The nurse carried a cup of foul-tasting wolfsbane potion, as she had every day for the past week. Mercy was used to it by now--she’d been doing this for years. She took it without comment, and downed it as fast as she could. Her stomach churned, and for a moment, her gag-reflex threatened to send it back up. She steeled herself and took a slow, deep breath. Setting the cup aside, she stood from her chair. The nurse gestured for her to follow.

The nurse led her down through the less populated hallways toward the ground floor. Eventually, they reached a door that led outside. They quickly and quietly crossed the grounds, toward a gnarled old willow tree. Mercy wondered exactly where they were going--they’d told her she would be brought to a safe place, but she hadn’t gotten any specifics. As they approached the tree, Mercy noticed a hole near the base, like the entrance to a tunnel. She figured it might lead to a secret, underground room or something. On a normal day, she would have been bursting with excitement and curiosity. Today, however, she was glancing up at the sky, as the last vestiges of sunlight disappeared over the forest. Wanting to get to this ‘safe place’ as quickly as possible, she stepped forward toward the tunnel. The nurse grabbed her arm and pulled her back just in time. A tree branch slammed into the ground where she’d been about to step.

A memory stirred. Her mam had said something about a tree--the Whomping Willow, she’d called it. The nurse began to explain in a hushed voice.

“This passage leads to a house in Hogsmeade called the Shrieking Shack. Don’t worry, it isn’t haunted. In fact, that rumour started the first time we had a werewolf as a student here--he went there to transform, and some of the townspeople heard and thought it was a ghost. That rumour will protect you, I suggest you encourage it.”

The nurse picked up a long stick from the ground, and used it to reach a knot on the trunk of the tree. The branches froze when she hit it. “This will disarm the tree for a few moments, long enough for us to get down there. I’ll come down with you, but I won’t be able to stay.”

Mercy nodded. That much was obvious. The nurse gestured for her to enter the passage, and she crawled into the tunnel. She heard the nurse climb in behind her. The older witch whispered “Lumos,” and a pale light filled the tunnel, casting shadows on the walls as they moved.

They emerged some time later in a dark room. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and in various states of disarray. The wallpaper was peeling, and furniture lay in broken pieces strewn across the room. A rickety set of stairs led to an upper level. There may have been windows, but they were covered with thick, wooden boards, and no light shone through.

“Will you be all right?” the nurse asked. Mercy nodded. She’d be as all right as she possibly could be anyway. She straightened her shoulders and held her chin high, putting on a brave face.

“I’ll be fine. Thank you,” she said. Her voice came out uncharacteristically quiet. She forced a small smile. The nurse nodded, and gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

“I’ll be back in the morning at seven thirty. I’ll bring you some breakfast, if you want.”

“That would be nice.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the nurse turned and crawled back through the tunnel, leaving Mercy alone in the dark, abandoned shack. She glanced at the plastic digital watch that she’d brought with her--she didn’t normally wear it, but she thought it would be comforting to know the time, since she’d be spending the night all alone in an unfamiliar place. The backlit numbers blinked up at her, the only source of light in the room. 8:27.

Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. With a small sigh, which sounded incredibly loud in the empty room, she trudged up the stairs. Exploring was better than sitting still any day. At the top of the staircase, she found a short hall, at the end of which was a master bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, and she pushed it open further, the hinges protesting with a loud creak. Stepping into the bedroom, her eyes were drawn to a large, dust-covered, four-poster bed. She sat down on top of the moth-eaten duvet, and set her bag on the floor.

The dust that she had displaced tickled her nose, and she sneezed. Twice. Standing up, she carefully peeled back the covers to reveal a just as threadbare, but significantly less dusty sheet. She sprawled across the bed and looked up at the canopy, her small hands clasped over her stomach. With nothing to break the silence, she became distinctly aware of her own breathing and heartbeat. She closed her eyes. When she looked at her watch again, it was 8:49.

Rising from the bed, she kicked off her shoes and socks. Not wanting to rip her clothes during her transformation, she stripped them off and stuffed them in her bag with her clothes for tomorrow. She shivered, and climbed underneath the top sheet to protect herself from the cool September air. She took off her watch, glancing at it one last time before tossing it onto her bag. It bounced off and clattered to the floor, but she didn’t really care at the moment. It was 8:55.

She felt a tremor run up her spine. It was starting. She curled into the sheets with a grimace, clutching a fistful of fabric. Another tremor, more intense. Her muscles started to spasm uncontrollably, and she gritted her teeth and screwed her eyes shut. Her bones began to shift and elongate, sending a shooting pain throughout her entire body. Her fingers were in agony as claws pushed their way through her skin. She couldn’t tell if she was screaming.

The transformation took minutes, at most. It felt like an eternity, every time. The wolfsbane potion allowed her to keep her sanity, but it did not relieve anything else. When it was over, she lay with her muzzle pressed into the mattress, whimpering quietly. Eventually, her breathing returned to normal, and then slowed even further. She kept her eyes closed, and welcomed sleep.

When she awoke, she was disoriented. This was not her bed--neither at home, nor in her dormitory. The room was dark and smelled of dust and mildew. She jerked upward, falling off the bed and onto the wooden floor. Slowly, everything came back. She reached for her watch, which lay nearby. It was 6:58. She must have slept through the reverse transformation, something she was incredibly grateful for.

She was sore, as she always was, her bones aching. She tried to push herself up, but her arm felt like one gigantic bruise, and it refused to support her. She collapsed back onto the floor. She reached out and hooked a finger around the strap of her bag, dragging it towards her. Using the bed for support, she lurched into a sitting position, gasping in pain as it sent a shock through her spine. Digging through her bag, she pulled out her change of clothes. She slipped a shirt over her head, her shoulders protesting, then struggled into her trousers. When that was done, she leaned back against the bed and stared despondently at her watch, which read 7:09.

The watch had been a birthday present from her dad, three years ago. It was red and blue, her favourite colours. She rarely wore it, mostly because she would take it off, and then forget to put it back on again. But she had asked for one for her eighth birthday, and he had gotten it for her.

As she stared at the watch, an overwhelming sense of loneliness crashed over her. All of the sudden, she wanted her parents more desperately than she’d ever wanted anything. She wanted to fall into her mam’s arms and have her hold her tightly and kiss her forehead. She wanted, needed, her dad to sit next to her, as he always did after the full moon, and pull her in close without saying anything. She only just now realized that she’d never gone through this without them. She’d never woken up the next morning without her father there to comfort her. She missed her parents so intensely, so vividly, she couldn’t move at all for a moment.

And then she began to cry.

The nurse found her sitting on the floor against the bed, ugly, heaving sobs shaking her small frame. The older woman knelt down and rubbed circles on Mercy’s back, making soft, soothing noises as the girl leaned into her. After a while, she calmed down. Her tears subsided to the occasional sniffle, and then stopped altogether. The nurse said nothing--after all, what could she say? But she kept a gentle, reassuring hand on the child’s shoulder as she conjured a handkerchief and offered it.

An hour later, Mercy trudged up to the hospital wing, where she was encouraged to take a long nap. It was a Sunday, conveniently enough. She wasn’t missing any classes. She flopped onto one of the beds, and promptly passed out, not waking up until well after noon.

County Kildare was a lovely place for a holiday. They weren’t far from Dublin, and they were in the countryside, on the outskirts of the county, surrounded by rolling hills of green grass and lush forest. Yes, the scene was perfect. A beautiful getaway for a day or two in the summer.

A picnic was in order for the evening. It had been Domhnall’s idea to watch the sun set behind the hills before returning to the little cottage they’d rented. They’d packed a basket full of food, a large blanket to sit on, and even a bag of marshmallows, should they decide to stay out after dark and build a fire.

Mercy was particularly excited for that.

“Can I build the fire?” she asked around a bite of her sandwich.

“Swallow, Mercy,” her mam chided. She did so, exaggerating for comic effect.

“Can I?” she asked again.

“Hm, we’ll see,” said her dad, glancing at her mam. He wasn’t particularly keen on handing a six-year-old a box of matches, but he didn’t have a problem with her helping. “I can teach you, anyway. And you can help me gather wood.”

Mercy grinned, her excitement building. She rushed through the rest of her sandwich, gazing up at the orange sky as the sun sank slowly behind the hills. Too slowly. Sunsets were pretty and all, thought Mercy, but they got boring after a little while. She didn’t like just staring at things and waiting--she was not a patient person.

Having finished her food, she stood and looked for something to do while her parents ate. They took their time. They always seemed to take their time. Her mam said it was just that they didn’t rush like she did, but she didn’t feel like she was rushing. She was going at the appropriate pace to get to the next activity as quickly as possible. They were just slow.

After about five minutes of walking, running, and skipping in circles around her parents, her dad finally gave her something to do.

“Hey, why don’t you start collecting wood, love? I’ll join you in a minute. Just stick to where we can see you.”

Mercy nodded emphatically and sprinted off to the edge of the forest. They’d set up their picnic about ten meters from the treeline, since it gave them a good view of the sunset, so she figured they’d be able to see her as long as she didn’t venture into the thicker part. She set to gathering firewood, snapping off dead twigs and branches, picking up sticks, and making a general ruckus.

After ten minutes or so, her dad joined her, helping her break the larger branches down to a more manageable size. Together, they made their way a little deeper into the woods, just barely able to see Mercy’s mam packing up the food back at their picnic spot. Once they’d both collected an armful of wood, they returned to the site and deposited the branches on the ground by their blanket. They made two more trips, then came back, and cleared out an area for their fire.

“Alright, Mercy, watch. You get three of your bigger pieces, like this, for the base,” Domhnall started. “And you set it up in a sort of ‘A’ shape. Then you take your smaller twigs, your kindling, and you arrange it in a little bundle on top, see?”

He reached for the box of matches, selected one, and struck it. “Then you light the kindling from underneath.” He did so. When the fire caught, he shook out the match and threw it into the blossoming fire. “Now you take your medium sized sticks, and you add them, slowly building it up, and taking bigger sticks as you go.”

He let Mercy add wood to the fire until it was a good size. “There. And now we can do marshmallows, if you want.”

“Yeah!” Mercy beamed as the flames danced before her, and she tossed one last stick on top.

“Here, I’ll tend to this, while you go get the marshmallows and some--oh, wait!” Her dad looked up, cutting himself off. “We don’t have skewers. Mercy, do you think you can find some long, thin sticks for us to use? Good lass.”

Mercy nodded and took off into the woods on a mission. She scanned the ground, looking for the perfect branches. Too thick. Too short. Too brittle. Too curved. She picked them up, then tossed them aside dismissively as they failed to meet her requirements. She found one, but she needed two more. Glancing back over her shoulder, she realized she’d gone pretty far into the woods. She couldn’t see her parents anymore, although she could hear their voices. She shrugged to herself. She knew how to get back to them. And she didn’t think the woods were dangerous.

She kept going, twirling her stick around in her hand. She giggled, and brandished it like a sword, lunging at an imaginary foe. Her foot kicked against another stick that looked long and straight and bendy and thin enough, so she picked it up. Now she had two swords. She danced about, jumping over a log, and cutting the underbrush away with her sticks, barely noticing how far into the woods she had gone.

And barely noticing how dark it had gotten.

Finally, she found a third stick that looked suitable, and she turned around to walk back to the site. Only, it was rather hard to see. The thick canopy of trees blocked out the moonlight, and the sun was gone. Well, she could still sort of hear her parents, she thought. She couldn’t make out anything they were saying, but she heard her mam’s laugh very faintly through the trees. She turned toward the sound, and tried to follow it.

After a minute of tramping through the woods, the voices seemed a little louder. She picked up her pace, hoping they weren’t worried about her.

And then she heard a howl. She froze. Were there wolves in these woods? Were there wolves in Ireland? Her mam had told her that all the wild wolves were gone...but that certainly sounded like a wolf. Maybe it was a dog? In any case, it sounded fairly far away. She tried not to worry about it. She resumed walking.

Another howl. Closer this time. She felt her heart speed up. She walked faster, trying to listen for her parents. She thought she heard her dad...but she definitely heard a rustle in the underbrush behind her. She turned, her breathing shallow and her heart pounding wildly. She clutched her sticks tightly, holding them out in front of her as her only protection.

The forest grew quiet. The only sound Mercy could hear was her own breathing in her ears. The only things she could see were the dark outlines of the trees all around her. Nothing happened. It felt like an eternity passed. The woods were silent.

Mercy slowly lowered her guard, her heartbeat returning to normal. She took a step in the direction of the site, searching for any sign of the campfire through the trees. There. A flicker of light.

A low growl sounded behind her. She whipped around, dropped her sticks, and screamed, loud and piercing, as a huge beast with matted fur and wicked fangs and strangely humanoid eyes filled her vision, and suddenly she was on the ground, and it was on top of her, crushing her, and she could feel its hot breath on her face as it opened its foaming maw, and its sharp claws dug into her skin, and suddenly there was a searing pain in her shoulder. Her vision went white, and she was still screaming, but she felt something in the pit of her stomach explode out of her, and the wolf was gone.


Mercy had been gone for about twenty minutes now, and Domhnall was starting to get worried. He’d been making light conversation with Ai while they waited, watching the last vestiges of the sun slip over the horizon, but as the night got darker, he looked nervously toward the woods.

“Do you think I should go after her? She’s been gone a while...I hope she hasn’t gotten lost.”

Ai nodded and stood. “Mercy!” she called into the woods. No response. “MERCY!” she tried again. Domhnall joined her.

“MERCY?!” He stepped into the treeline, scanning the darkness.

Then they heard the scream.

In an instant, Ai’s wand was in her hand, and both of them were charging headlong into the forest, twigs slapping against their cheeks and ankles.

Ai got there first, her eyes moving immediately to the giant wolf. It whimpered as it began to stir. It seemed it had been thrown with considerable force into a nearby oak tree. Wait, wolf? No. She took note of the tufted tail and shorter snout, and realized with horror. Not a wolf. A werewolf.

“Stupify!” The curse left her lips without thinking, and struck the dazed creature squarely between the eyes. “Confringo! Bombarda!” The ground exploded, and the beast jumped backwards, barely avoiding it. The werewolf whined and fled, tail between its legs, as the devastated mother flung hex after hex behind it.

Domhnall’s eyes fell first on his daughter, who lay sobbing on the ground. Her shirt was torn, and a red stain was slowly spreading outwards from her right shoulder. He skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees beside her, rolling up her sleeve to find two large gouges, and blood welling up and covering everything. He pulled off his own shirt, balled it up, and pressed it against the wound to stop the blood flow.

“Ai!” he shouted. She turned around and came to his side. “We need to get her to a hospital.”

“Not just a hospital. St. Mungo's,” she responded. “She needs silver and dittany.”

“What?”

“It was a werewolf, Domhnall! She was bitten by a werewolf.”

His eyes went wide. Did that mean…? No. Not his little girl. Not if he could stop it.

He scooped Mercy up into his arms. “How do we get to St. Mungo's?”

“Hold on to her. Don't let go.”

“Wh--”

She grabbed his arm, and suddenly the world was spinning, and his stomach lurched, and he felt completely weightless. He clutched his daughter to his chest and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he nearly fell over from the dizziness. They were in a hospital lobby, and Ai was calling for a nurse, and someone was rushing over, and his stomach heaved but he ignored it as he felt someone’s hands extricating Mercy from his arms.

She was unconscious at this point. He watched numbly as the doctors rolled her away on a gurney, taking her to a room. He felt his wife's hand on his, and complied as she pushed him down into a chair. He stared down at his bloodied shirt, still clutched tightly in his hand. His worried gaze met hers. He swallowed, afraid to ask the question at the forefront of his mind.

“Is she…?”

“She's infected.”

She said it with an air of finality. There was nothing they could do. He slumped, dropped his shirt in his lap, and buried his face in his hands.

“God,” he whispered. “Oh, God.”

He was not a praying man, not really. He'd grown up Catholic, but hadn't really bothered with it for at least a decade. Today he prayed for a miracle.

But even a million Hail Marys would not stop the infection coursing through her veins.


Mercy awoke to a dull throbbing in her shoulder, like a bruise. She could hear people talking in hushed tones nearby, but couldn't make out what they were saying. She tried to remember what had happened.

Teeth. Pain. Blood. Pain. Screaming. Pain.

She cracked her eyes open. Blinked against the sudden light. Where was she? She felt a bed underneath her, but not her bed. The mattress was hard. The air smelled...clean. She heard an unfamiliar voice.

“She's waking up.”

Who? Her? Were they talking about her?

She tried to move, and groaned. Ow.

She heard footsteps approaching quickly, and then someone took her hand, and she peered up at her father's face. “Dad?”

“A thaisce, how’re you feeling?”

She looked past his face and found her mam there as well, standing slightly behind him.

“Hurts,” she managed, her throat dry. She coughed.

Her mam handed her a glass of water from the bedside table. She tried to move her right arm, but winced, and took it with her left hand instead. Her dad helped her sit up so she could drink.

“What...what happened?” Fangs. Fur. Claws. Blood.

“You…” her Dad hesitated. “You were attacked. Bitten.”

“By a wolf?” It was starting to come back to her.

“A werewolf,” her mam said, her voice barely above a whisper. Mercy opened her mouth, but no noise came out, as realization slowly hit her wide brown eyes.

“A werewolf…” she repeated. At six years old, the full implications were not apparent to her. But she was old enough to know that being bitten by a werewolf was very very bad.

She looked back at her father, and noticed that his eyes were rimmed with red, like he'd been crying. She'd never seen her father cry.

She turned her head and looked down at her right shoulder. It was wrapped in a bandage, which was stained with dried blood. She knew what happened when you got bitten by a werewolf. But it didn't seem quite real.

A nurse came in. She looked sad. No, not quite sad--something else. She didn't know the word for it.


Domhnall knew what it was. It was pity. He'd seen it in all the doctors’ eyes, ever since they'd arrived. It made him unimaginably angry, but he didn't have the energy to do anything about it.

He hadn't slept at all that night. Both he and Ai had simply sat in the lobby all night long, waiting for their daughter to wake up. It was 6:30 in the morning when she did.

And here he sat, clutching her tiny hand in both of his, as he watched understanding dawn on her innocent face--limited understanding, but understanding all the same.

“I'm a werewolf,” she whispered eventually. His throat closed, and he couldn't speak. He knew it was true. He'd known it this whole time. Yet he still wanted to deny it, wanted to tell her that, no, maybe she wasn't. They couldn't know, really, until the next full moon.

Only they could. And they did. And denying it wouldn't change the truth. He nodded, wordlessly. She closed her eyes, and leaned her head back against the headboard of her bed.

He sighed. Kissed her forehead.

“We love you. No matter what, okay?”

She nodded.

“No matter what,” he repeated. He stroked her hair, and Ai came to sit on the bed on her other side, and the three of them sat there for almost an hour, dreading, perhaps, the future, but grateful for what they still had.


A thaisce - My treasure